Tag: Biden

FAA again delays decision on environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility

1:32 pm

Surprise, surprise! According to an FAA email sent out today, the agency has once again, for the fifth time, delayed its decision on the environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship launch site.

From the email:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is updating the release date for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) on the Federal Infrastructure Permitting Dashboard (Permitting Dashboard) and project website. The FAA plans to issue the Final PEA on April 29th. The planned April 29, 2022 release date will allow the FAA to review the Final PEA, including responses to comments, and complete consultation and coordination with agencies at the local, State, and Federal level. All consultations must be complete before the FAA can issue the Final PEA.

This date is now listed on the FAA’s SpaceX-Starship webpage. Nor is the decision a surprise. Expect the FAA to continue this charade month-to-month until after the November election, when the Biden administration will then feel free to block SpaceX’s effort in Boca Chica completely.

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SpaceX raises launch prices

10:55 am

Capitalism in space: Though most of the press has focused on the Starlink announcement on March 22nd that it was raising its subscriber rates, that same day SpaceX announced that it too was raising its prices, increasing its launch fees by 8% to 10%.

The starting prices for a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket will each increase by about 8%. A Falcon 9 launch will cost $67 million, up from $62 million, and a Falcon Heavy launch will now run $97 million, up from $90 million. A footnote on SpaceX’s pricing page notes that “missions purchased in 2022 but flown beyond 2023 may be subject to additional adjustments due to inflation.”

..The company also adjusted its prices for its small satellite rideshare program. Those flights will now start at $1.1 million to fly a payload weighing 200 kilograms to a sun-synchronous orbit, up from a base price of $1 million. SpaceX increased the cost of additional payload mass by 10% as well and will now charge $5,500 per extra kilogram, up from a previous $5,000 per kilogram.

As with the Starlink announcement, SpaceX officials stated that the price increase was due entirely by inflation.

The irony here is that SpaceX could easily raise its rocket prices by 20%, and still be undercutting its entire competition. Even with these increases it is still by far the cheapest game in town.

Nonetheless, when it comes to inflation we have only just begun. The consequences of the Ukraine war, the sanctions against Russia, the Biden administration’s restrictions on domestic oil production, and the various COVID regulations restricting commerce are all still in effect, and are all putting pressure on supply. Prices will continue to rise.

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Biden administration demands that all NASA grantees hire minorities/women

10:44 am

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” The Biden administration has proposed a new rule for anyone receiving financial grants from NASA, requiring those grantees to solicit bids for any subcontracting work from minorities and/or women.

The Grants Policy and Compliance Branch (GPC) in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Office of the Chief Financial Officer is soliciting public comment on the Agency’s proposed implementation of a new term and condition that requires recipients of NASA financial assistance to obtain a quotation from small and/or minority businesses, women’s business enterprises or labor surplus area firms when the acquisition of goods or services exceeds the simplified acquisition threshold.

…NASA’s expectation is that this action will result in an increase in contracting opportunities for small and/or minority businesses, women’s business enterprises and labor surplus area firms that contract with NASA financial assistance recipients.

The rule is not yet in effect. NASA is simply seeking public comment. However, the intent of this “equity” regulation is the same as all critical race theory implementations, to favor minorities and women and discriminate against whites and men. And if you don’t believe me, read this further explanation for this new rule at the link:

On January 25, 2021, President Biden issued E.O. 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” outlining a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality. Given that advancing equity requires a systematic approach to embedding fairness in the decision-making process, the E.O. instructs agencies to recognize and work to redress inequities in their policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal opportunity.

Since everyone has the same equal opportunity to compete for bids, this new Biden rule, which is designed to tilt the scale and discriminate in favor of “people of color and others who have been historically underserved”, it is actually creating barriers to equal opportunity. It is also a bald-faced violation of every civil rights law passed since 1964, which required that no one should be discriminated against because of their race, ethnicity, religion, or sex, be they white, black, red, yellow, green, or orange.

But then, this is our Democratic Party, led by Joe Biden. It has eagerly returned to its slave/segregation roots, where it sees race as a person’s only important attribute, with some races deserving favored treatment and other races to be oppressed. Until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s Democrats favored whites and oppressed minorities. Now the party favors minorities and oppresses whites.

Nothing has really changed however. The Democratic Party, led by Joe Biden, remains the party of racism and bigotry.

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SpaceX switches to newer Starship and Superheavy for orbital test

9:25 am

Capitalism in space: According to Elon Musk, SpaceX has decided that the company will no longer use Starship prototype #20 and Superheavy prototype #4 for the rocket’s first orbital test flight.

Instead, the company will fly two more recently built and upgraded prototypes, rumored to be numbers #24 for Starship and #7 for Superheavy. The company has also decided to switch from the first generation Raptor engines to Raptor-2s.

All these changes likely explain Musk’s announcement that the first orbital launch will not happen sooner than May. The changes also further suggest that SpaceX has realized federal permission to launch from Boca Chica will be further delayed, and thus it might has well push forward in other ways as it waits for the right to launch.

I suspect that if the federal government hadn’t moved in to block operations, it would have flown prototypes 20 and 4 two months ago, just to get some data. Now such a flight seems pointless, as more advanced prototypes are now almost ready to fly.

This decision also reinforces my prediction that no orbital flights will occur out of Boca Chica before summer, and are more likely blocked through November. It also increases my expectation that the first orbital flight might not occur at all in Texas. The longer the Biden administration delays SpaceX’s operations there, the greater the chance the entire Starship/Superheavy launch program will shift to Florida.

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Musk says Starship will be ready for first orbital launch in May

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: In a tweet yesterday Elon Musk said that Starship will be ready for first orbital launch in May, a delay of two months from his previous announcements.

“We’ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test,” Musk tweeted in response to CNBC.

While the delay could certainly be because the company needed to prepare enough Superheavy engines, I also suspect it is also because Musk now expects the FAA to not approve the environmental reassessment of Starship’s Boca Chica launch site by the end of March, as has been promised. I predict that sometime in the next few days the FAA will announce another one-month delay in that process, the fourth such delay by that federal agency.

In late-December, when the FAA announced the first delay, I predicted that the first orbital launch of Starship would not happen until the latter half of ’22. I now think that prediction was optimistic. I firmly believe the federal government, controlled by Democrats, will delay that launch until after the mid-term elections in November. It appears to me that the Biden administration wants to reject the environmental reassessment, which would block Starship flights from Boca Chica for years. It just doesn’t want to do it before November, because of the negative election consequences.

I truly hope my cynical and pessimistic analysis is utterly wrong. So far, however, my prediction has proven to be more right than wrong.

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Elon Musk targets 2029 for first Starship manned mission to Mars

9:16 am

Capitalism in space: In a tweet today Elon Musk announced 2029 as his present target date for the first Starship manned mission to Mars.

This target date should not be considered firm, though it must be taken seriously. Musk’s past predictions tended to be optimistic, but also not unrealistic. If Starship development proceeds at the pace SpaceX is presently maintaining, this date is wholly doable.

The article at the link also said that the first Starship orbital test flight “is expected to take place within the next month.” That certainly matches with Musk’s previous statements, but ignores the bureaucratic delays from the FAA that at the moment prevent it from happening.

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Pushback: Pilots sue CDC over Biden mask requirement on planes

12:02 pm

How the CDC determines its mask policies
How the CDC determines its mask policies

Don’t comply: Ten pilots from three different American airlines — American, Southwest, and JetBlue — have now sued the CDC over the Biden administrations mask mandate requiring everyone to wear masks on airplanes.

A group of commercial airline pilots filed a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an attempt to lift the federal transportation mask mandate.

In court paperwork, the 10 commercial airline pilots – who work for American JetBlue and Southwest – argued that the CDC issued an order “Requirement for Persons to Wear Masks While on Conveyances & at Transportation Hubs” on Feb. 1, 2020 “without providing public notice or soliciting comment.”

The pilots are asking the court to “vacate worldwide the FTMM (federal transportation mask mandate)” calling the move an “illegal and unconstitutional exercise of executive authority.”

Biden’s edict was first imposed on February 1, 2021, shortly after he took power. It has been extended several times since, the most recent extension keeping it in force through April 18, 2022. At no time, however, has any data been put forth by the CDC demonstrating that the required masks accomplish anything, while we already have decades of data showing that the masks are useless against viruses like the Wuhan flu.

This new lawsuit is the eighteenth filed against the mandate, though it is the first filed by those who work on the planes.

The pilots claim above that the CDC did not follow federal law when it imposed the mandate is almost certainly correct. » Read more

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Russia suggests sanctions will force to end ISS partnership in ’24, rather than ’30

9:16 am

Because of the sanctions imposed by the Biden government due to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, officials at Roscosmos today suggested that they are considering ending their participation on ISS in 2024, rather than 2030 when NASA wants to de-orbit it.

“Roscosmos currently has a government permission for operating the ISS only until 2024. The issue of extending the agreement in the current conditions causes our skepticism,” the Roscosmos press office said.

The Russian space agency said it hoped that the US Department of State would soon stop its pressure on NASA and allow it to begin a dialogue with Russia. “If we do not come to an agreement, this will have its effect on the international piloted space program,” the press office said.

This really isn’t news. Even before the invasion, Russia had been uncertain on whether it would continue on ISS after ’24. It really needs ISS, as its own effort to build a Russian station has numerous problems. The Russians however also recognize that at least one of its modules on ISS, Zvezda, is failing. The station’s life is limited regardless.

Moreover, the U.S. is shifting away from government-owned assets in space. ISS’s replacement will be privately built and owned, and it is very very unlikely those private companies will partner with Russia.

The Russian partnership at ISS is ending no matter what. The Ukraine war is merely accelerating it.

As for maintaining ISS after ’24 should the Russians leave, NASA has some of the main Russian responsibilities well covered, due to private enterprise. It will test raising the station’s orbit shortly using the Northrop Grumman Cygnus freighter presently docked with the station, thus replacing Russia’s Progress freighter boosts. And the availability of Dragon and Starliner capsules will provide lifeboats for station crews.

The big question is that some of the life support equipment is provided by Russian modules. If the Russians detach the portion of the station, ISS will lose some of those capabilities. Hopefully Axiom’s first ISS module, due to launch by ’24, will replace those Russian assets.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Jan 6th demonstrator apparently commits suicide due to Biden administration persecution

11:23 am

Matthew Perna, dead because he expressed his opinion
Matthew Perna, now dead because he simply expressed an opinion

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: Matthew Perna, one of the vast majority of demonstrators who came to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to peacefully protest the installation of Joe Biden as president, has now apparently committed suicide at the age of 37 because of the Biden administration’s endless persecution, slander, and legal attacks against him.

From his obituary:

He attended the rally on January 6, 2021 to peacefully stand up for his beliefs. After learning that the FBI was looking for him, he immediately turned himself in. He entered the Capitol through a previously opened door (he did not break in as was reported) where he was ushered in by police. He didn’t break, touch, or steal anything. He did not harm anyone, as he stayed within the velvet ropes taking pictures.

For this act he has been persecuted by many members of his community, friends, relatives, and people who had never met him. Many people were quietly supportive, and Matt was truly grateful for them. The constant delays in hearings, and postponements dragged out for over a year. Because of this, Matt’s heart broke and his spirit died, and many people are responsible for the pain he endured. Matt did not have a hateful bone in his body. He embraced people of all races, income brackets, and beliefs, never once berating anyone for having different views.

» Read more

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Space spat between Biden and Rogozin over Russian invasion of Ukraine

9:23 am

Yesterday saw harsh words expressed by both President Biden and the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, concerning the partnership of the two countries at ISS, with Biden imposing sanctions and noting these will specifically harm Russia’s space industry, and Rogozin responding by threatening to dump ISS on either a U.S. or European city.

In Biden’s statement, he said, “We estimate that we will cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports, and it will strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military. It will degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program,”

Rogozin’s response came in a series of tweets on Twitter, with his most bellicose statements as follows:

Do you want to destroy our cooperation on the ISS?

This is how you already do it by limiting exchanges between our cosmonaut and astronaut training centers. Or do you want to manage the ISS yourself? Maybe President Biden is off topic, so explain to him that the correction of the station’s orbit, its avoidance of dangerous rendezvous with space garbage, with which your talented businessmen have polluted the near-Earth orbit, is produced exclusively by the engines of the Russian Progress MS cargo ships. If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe? There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure to India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, so all the risks are yours. Are you ready for them?

Meanwhile, it isn’t Russia’s space industry that will suffer the most from this invasion, but Ukraine’s. For example, the American company Launcher, which has had a software team in the Ukraine, has moved most of that team to Bulgaria for their safety.

As a precaution given the escalating political situation, during the last few weeks, we successfully relocated our Ukraine staff to Sofia, Bulgaria, where we opened a new Launcher Europe office. We also invited their immediate family to join them in this move and funded their relocation expenses. We continue to encourage and support five of the support staff and one engineer who decided to remain in Ukraine.

The company’s press release makes it clear that it is no longer dependent in any way with facilities in the Ukraine.

Launcher’s actions will not be the last. Expect all Western commercial efforts linked to the Ukraine to break off ties in order to protect their investments. Moreover, if Russia should recapture the Ukraine entirely, it will likely not give much support to its space industry, as Roscosmos has developed its own Russian resources in the past two decades and will likely want to support those instead.

Thus, the expected destruction of that country’s aerospace industry by Russia’s invasion proceeds.

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Firefly savior Max Polyakov gives away his stock

9:58 am

Capitalism in space: Forced by the Biden administration to leave the smallsat rocket company Firefly Aerospace because he is not a U.S. citizen, the billionaire Max Polyakov — who brought the company back from bankruptcy — has now sold his 58% share to the company’s founder, Tom Markusic for one dollar.

His announcement of this decision did not speak well of the federal government:

I am giving up for 1 usd consideration all my 58% stake in Firefly to my co-founder and partner Tom. Dear CFIUS, Air Force and 23 agencies of USA who betrayed me and judge me in all your actions for past 15 months . I hope now you are happy . History will judge all of you guys. Max love Ukraine and yes I have Ukrainian passport and I am Founder of Firefly !!! Bye my “bird” and at the end of the days I proud what I done for my Land soul and heritage !!!

While it is generally not a good idea to have a non-U.S. citizen controlling a rocket company, Polyakov’s record here was outstandingly positive, for the U.S. Moreover, the Ukraine is a strong ally of the U.S., or used to be. To force him out for no reason seems irrational. A more rational approach would have been for the government to insist on monitoring his actions closely, so that only if he appeared to be acting against our interests would it act.

Polyakov’s decision to give Markusic the company further proves his good will. Too bad we have now lost him.

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FAA administrator, a Trump holdover, announces resignation

9:41 am

FAA administrator Steve Dickson yesterday announced that he will officially resign from the agency on March 31, 2022.

Dickson was appointed by President Trump in 2019 to a five year term, so his resignation now cuts his term short by two years.

Dickson gave as his reason for resigning a desire to spend more time with his family, the go-to explanation for every Washington official’s resignation. While this may be true, I can’t help wondering if friction and pressure from the Biden administration contributed to his decision.

For example, though Dickson’s record with private enterprise has been mixed, his record in connection with commercial space was mostly good, working to help the new launch industry prosper by keeping out its way as much as possible. This record was especially obvious with SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica, where there was little regulatory effort to slow that work until Biden became president, and even then relatively little. It could be the Biden administration was unhappy with this approach, and was trying to force Dickson to regulate SpaceX more.

A new administrator, appointed by Biden, will certainly be less friendly. Based on most Biden appointees in the past year, the administration will likely want to put someone in place who is hostile to capitalism, favors a communist agenda, and wants to impose strong government control. Thus, this resignation almost certainly puts another nail in the coffin of SpaceX’s desire to launch Starship test flights from Boca Chica.

Then again, that new administrator would have to be approved by the Senate, and right now, based on the Senate’s 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans, it will be difficult for the Biden administration to get a radical leftist approved. This difficulty will be further magnified by Biden’s horrible poll numbers as well as similar polls suggesting a bloodbath for Democrats in the mid-term November elections. For them to force through an extremist in this position now will not help those poll numbers.

I therefore predict the nominee put forth by Biden will likely mouth empty support for private enterprise during the confirmation hearings. If the Senate Republicans are fooled by this disingenuousness (something that has happened frequently), when confirmed that person will immediately act to impose the government’s will on most commercial operations, especially those by SpaceX.

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FAA delays Starship approval again

1:03 pm

Death by a thousand cuts: The FAA today announced that it is once again delaying the release of the final version of its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility, the PEA, that will allow Starship orbital launches to occur there.

The FAA intended to release the Final PEA on February 28, 2022. The FAA now plans to release the Final PEA on March 28, 2022 to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations.

Though the draft PEA had approved SpaceX future Starship operations at Boca Chica, all signs continue to point to heavy resistance to making that approval official both within the Biden administration as well as those other “interagency consultations.”

I predict that the FAA will delay again, and it will delay repeatedly month by month as agencies like Fish & Wildlife and NOAA refuse to go along. The only one who could break this deadlock would be President Biden, and the only chance he or any of the people running his administration will do so is if they decide to reject the FAA’s reassessment to instead demand a new and full environmental impact statement, which would likely take years to complete.

Texas politicians might want to wake up. If SpaceX fails to get this approval it will shift its Starship operations almost entirely to Florida. I must also add that politicians across the nation should wake up as well, because if the Biden administration blocks SpaceX, the many year delay for the launch of Starship will likely impact many many businesses nationwide. It will also negatively impact NASA’s effort to land humans on the Moon this decade.

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Lockheed Martin cancels merger with Aerojet Rocketdyne

8:52 am

Capitalism in space: Faced with a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opposing the merger, Lockheed Martin yesterday announced that it is terminating its effort to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Aerojet released a press release at the same time, insisting that the company remains viable and healthy, but there are doubts. While its rocket engines (its main business) remain technically reliable and well-built, they are relatively expensive. Moreover, the shift by rocket companies to build their own engines in the last decade has reduced its customer base significantly.

This loss of market is now compounded by a battle between two factions on the company’s board of directors.

While monopolies do not encourage competition, the merger with Lockheed Martin would have been mostly good for the rocket industry. It would have quickly given Lockheed Martin the skills to make rockets, and kept Aerojet Rocketdyne alive, albeit as part of another company. Now the latter faces extinction, and the former will need more time to develop the capabilities required in its recently-won NASA contract to launch a rocket from Mars to return samples.

And once again, the FTC lawsuit indicates that the Biden administration has decided to take a heavy-regulatory hand when it comes to business. The result however of this approach in this case has not produced more competition, but the likely bankruptcy of at least one company.

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Pushback: Blacklisted doctors opposed to present Biden/CDC/FDA policies testify to Congress

12:55 pm

Do not comply: A large group of highly qualified doctors and nurses, almost all of whom have been blacklisted, fired, suspended, or prevented from treating patients simply because either they opposed the COVID shot mandates or wished to treat their patients as they saw fit, testified on January 24, 2022 in Congress, describing in horrible detail the many times they were forced to watch as their patients died because their hospitals had forbidden them from providing the treatments they knew would work.

Below is a 38 minute-long video showing the most dramatic testimony during the five hour hearing. If you want to watch the full hearing, go here.
» Read more

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FTC moves to block Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne

9:18 am

The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block Lockheed Martin’s purchase for $4.4 billion the rocket engine company Aerojet Rocketdyne.

The FTC apparently believes that the acquisition would give Lockheed Martin an unfair competitive advantage. It could refuse to sell Aerojet’s engines to the competitors who depend on them. It also would be able to obtain some of its competitors’ proprietary information through Aerojet.

This quote from the article however explains this action more accurately:

Over the past year, Lockheed Martin has argued that the merger should follow the same template as Northrop Grumman’s acquisition in 2018 of solid rocket motors manufacturer Orbital ATK. The Northrop-Orbital deal was approved by regulators on condition that the company agreed to supply motors to its competitors.

“The FTC during the Biden administration has taken a different view on market concentration and vertical integration than the last one, which approved the Northrop Grumman-Orbital ATK deal,” noted industry analyst Byron Callan, of Capital Alpha Partners. [emphasis mine]

This appears to be more evidence that Democratic Party control of the White House is resulting in more regulation and greater interference in the private sector. In this particular case that interference might very well cause Aerojet Rocketdyne to shut down entirely, since its customer base has been disappearing. It isn’t garnering any new customers because its rocket engines cost too much. Folded into Lockheed Martin the company might be reshaped and become productive and competitive again. Unfortunately, the Biden administration thinks it knows better, and might prevent that from happening.

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NASA: No further Artemis Moon landings for at least two years after first in 2025

11:53 am

The tortoise appears to be dying: NASA today announced that there will be a two-plus year pause of Artemis missions to the lunar surface after it completes its hoped-for first manned Moon landing in 2025.

In presentations at a two-day meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee Jan. 18 and 19, agency officials said the Artemis 4 mission, the first after the Artemis 3 mission lands astronauts on the moon, will not attempt a landing itself.

Instead, Artemis 4 will be devoted to assembly of the lunar Gateway. The mission will deliver the I-Hab habitat module, developed by the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency JAXA, to the Gateway. It will be docked with the first Gateway elements, the Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost, which will launch together on a Falcon Heavy in late 2024 and spend a year spiraling out to the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the moon.

Essentially, the Biden administration appears to be switching back to NASA’s original plans, to require use of the Lunar Gateway station for any future lunar exploration, thus delaying that exploration considerably. Do not expect any of this schedule to take place as promised. The 2025 lunar landing will be delayed, as will all subsequent SLS launches for Artemis. The rocket is simply too complicated and cumbersome to even maintain one launch per year, while inserting Gateway into the mix only slows down lunar exploration even more.

NASA officials also revealed that they are limiting their lunar landing Starship contract with SpaceX to only that single planned ’25 Moon mission. For future manned missions to the Moon the agency will request new bids from the entire industry.

NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) Option A award to SpaceX last year covers only development of a lander and a single crewed flight on Artemis 3. NASA will acquire future landings through a separate effort, called Lunar Exploration Transportation Services (LETS). The goal of LETS is to select one, and possibly more, companies to provide “sustainable” landing services.

The timing of LETS — a draft request for proposals is scheduled for release this spring — means there will be a gap of a couple years before the first landing service acquired through that program would be ready. “It’ll be about two years from the Option A award to the LETS award before we’ll have this sustainable lander,” Kirasich said. “It’s a different lander with more aggressive requirements than Option A.”

It appears that Jeff Bezos’ political lobbying efforts have paid off, and that NASA is now reopening bidding so that his consortium, led by Blue Origin, can once again compete for that lunar lander contract. Whether the Bezos’ team will be able to propose anything comparable to Starship is however very questionable.

None of this really hurts SpaceX. Its contract with NASA helps them develop a Starship lunar lander. Then, while NASA twiddles its thumbs building Gateway, it will be free to fly its own lunar missions, selling tickets on the open market. I suspect that — should NASA succeed in landing humans in ’25 — the next American manned landing on the Moon will be a bunch of SpaceX customers, not that second Artemis mission sometime in the late 2020s.

SpaceX of course will also be able to bid on that second lunar landing competition. And it will be hard for NASA not to award Starship a further contract, even if others are competing against it. Starship will be operational. The others will merely be proposed.

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Pushback: For calling parents “terrorists” National School Board Association facing “collapse”

12:11 pm

Not an organization parents should associate with
Parents and state school boards should return the favor, and get out.

Because of a letter [pdf] it sent to the Justice Department suggesting that protesting parents were akin to “domestic terrorists,” the National School Board Association (NSBA) now faces “total collapse,” with nineteen state school board organizations exiting the association, along with 6 members of its 19-person executive board.

More information here, including this quote:

Until this fall, the National School Boards Association was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter. It alleged that the threatening and aggressive acts against school board members across the country might be a form of “domestic terrorism” and asked for federal law enforcement intervention.

Now, the association is at risk of total collapse.

…Nineteen mostly GOP-led states have withdrawn from the association or promised to when this year’s membership expires, and six members of what was a 19-person board have left. Several states are discussing forming an alternative association for school boards. A new executive director of the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is working to save the organization, lobbying individual states to reconsider, but so far he has not persuaded any of them to change their minds.

» Read more

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Biden administration commits to operating ISS through 2030

5:46 pm

The Biden administration yesterday announced that it has committed NASA to operating the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030, a six year extension to the previous end date of 2024.

Today’s abrupt announcement on a federal holiday comes one day after Biden and Putin had a “serious and substantive” telephone conversation about the situation in Ukraine where Russian troops are massed at the border. Biden has said that if Russia invades Ukraine the United States and its allies will respond with more economic sanctions. A Russian official told reporters later that Putin warned Biden that any such sanctions “could result in a ‘complete rupture’ of relations” between the two countries, according to the New York Times.

…Asked why the ISS extension was announced today and if it is related to the Biden-Putin call, a NASA spokesperson told SpacePolicyOnline.com only that it has “been in the works for months.”

A White House commitment to 2030 falls short of setting the date in law, but demonstrates U.S. intentions at least as long as Biden is President. Whether the other partners, especially Russia, agree will be interesting to watch. ESA’s Director General, Josef Aschbacher, welcomed the news, but it will be the 11 ESA members who participate in the program who make the decision.

The article gives a good overview of the political issues, and notes accurately that it will be very difficult to operate the station if Russia and the U.S. part ways and Russia leaves the partnership.

What the article did not mention is the fragile state of some of Russia’s modules. Both Roscosmos and NASA know that the Zvezda module, the second oldest on ISS, is showing very worrisome signs of aging, including many stress fractures that have caused small airleaks. The Russians themselves have admitted that the module is failing, and have added that because of this fact the Putin government has begun work on a new and independent Russian station.

It is unclear if ISS could function if Zvezda became unusable. At a minimum its capabilities will be reduced. At worst it might not be safe to occupy.

The Biden administration and NASA can extend ISS on paper as much as they want, but reality suggests that it will be a dangerous challenge to keep the station running until 2030. The real solution is to get as many private commercial American stations launched in the next few years, so that when Zvezda fails, there will be viable options to ISS.

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Pushback against blacklists: Boeing cancels mandate to fire workers who don’t get COVID shot

12:27 pm

When Boeing was a great company
The 747: built when Boeing was a great company.

Do not comply: Boeing announced late last week that it is canceling its requirement that its workers get the COVID shots or be faced with termination.

The aircraft manufacturer said in an internal memo that it made the decision after a federal appeals court last month upheld its stay on President Biden’s vaccine mandate for companies with at least 100 employees.

It also appears that the decision was not solely for legal reasons. According to Boeing’s statement, “over 92% of the company’s U.S.-based workforce having registered as being fully vaccinated or having received a religious or medical accommodation.” That sounds nice, but based on the number of employees Boeing has, it means the company would have lost more than 10,000 employees if it had gone through with the mandate. Losing that many workers in one blow is likely something Boeing management did not want to deal with, especially considering the company’s numerous quality control problems.
» Read more

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Stop being afraid!

11:30 am

After almost two years the data continues to confirm the very first data in March 2020, showing the same thing time after time after time after time. COVID-19 is merely a variation of the ordinary flu, and the panic that has accompanied its arrival in early 2020 was never justified, not for one instant. Let me do a quick review of some recent data points:

First, the Wuhan flu is harmless to more than 99% of the population. If you are under 70 and healthy and get the virus, you are going to survive it. Period. And I say this from personal experience, as I am 68, have both asthma and a heart condition, and I just survived COVID. It wasn’t pleasant, but after two weeks it is over, and here I am.

More important, the numbers and data prove my anecdotal experience, as I noted in a detailed essay in October 26, 2021 — How deadly is COVID-19, really? — using numbers from the CDC as well as the New York Times. More than 99% of the population survives COVID-19, with no serious long term issues.

CDC estimates as of October 2021

Since then the CDC has updated its estimates of the number of people who have been infected by the Wuhan flu, compared to the numbers who have died, as shown in the screen capture to the right. Based on these numbers, 146 million have been infected by COVID (a little less than half the country) and 921,000 have died, resulting in an overall survival rate for anyone who gets COVID-19 as a robust 99.37%.

And that number is deceiving, because the large bulk — almost all — of those in that 0.63% who died were elderly (average age 78) and very sick (with one to three morbidities). A very few were younger, but were generally in very poor healthy (obese or with diabetes).

If you were part of the general healthy population, COVID-19 was harmless to you. In fact, half the country already knows this, as they have been infected and are alive to tell about it. Most had minor symptoms, though many (like myself) got sick for several weeks and then recovered. All however survived, just like the flu.

COVID-19 simply does not merit any special actions, other than to protect that elderly and very vulnerable population. Ordinary people must stop being afraid of it. Take off the masks. Rip down the plexiglass. Hug your friends. Return to normal life.

And most important, stop being afraid!
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Russia threatens to destroy U.S. GPS satellites

10:03 am

During a telecast on Russia TV, the television host claimed that Russia could destroy the entire American GPS satellite constellation, using its anti-satellite missile technology, should the U.S. or NATO “cross our red line.”

The Kremlin warned it could blow up 32 GPS satellites with its new anti-satellite technology, ASAT, which it tested Nov. 15 on a retired Soviet Tselina-D satellite, according to numerous news reports.

Russia then claimed on state television that its new ASAT missiles could obliterate NATO satellites and “blind all their missiles, planes and ships, not to mention the ground forces,” said Russian Channel One TV host Dmitry Kiselyov, rendering the West’s GPS-guided missiles useless. “It means that if NATO crosses our red line, it risks losing all 32 of its GPS satellites at once.”

The article claims “numerous news reports”, but it appears they all boil down to Kiselyov’s pronouncements on this one broadcast.

No matter. The Putin government is testing the waters, and showing that it is ready and willing to escalate tensions. It apparently thinks the Biden administration is too weak to respond. And who can disagree?

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Musk: Starship orbital flight could happen as soon as next month

2:57 pm

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk today announced that SpaceX will be ready to launch the first orbital flight of Starship as soon as one month from now.

“If all goes well, Starship will be ready for its first orbital launch attempt next month, pending regulatory approval,” Musk tweeted today [emphasis mine]

Musk’s tweet came one day after the FAA completed its public hearings on its environment reassessment of SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica. Before the agency can approve that reassessment it has to digest the comments, then to hold an “industry workshop” on this reassessment.

Thus, while SpaceX is ready to go, our lumbering, oppressive government is not. As I’ve written before, I fully expect there to be pressure from the Biden administration and NASA to slow walk that government approval so that Starship does not launch before February 2022, when SLS is now scheduled for its first launch. Having SpaceX get its heavy lift rocket into orbit before NASA would be very embarrassing, considering that SpaceX has spent about a third the time and about a tenth the money getting it done.

I hope I am wrong, but this is what I expect from the corrupt federal government we now have.

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FDA hearing and comment period for giving COVID vaccines to children 5 to 11

10:14 pm

The FDA is going to hold a hearing on October 26, 2021 to discuss whether to allow the experimental vaccines to be given to children ages 5 to 11. From its webpage:

The meeting presentations will be heard, viewed, captioned, and recorded through an online teleconferencing platform. On October 26, 2021, the committee will meet in open session to discuss a request to amend Pfizer-BioNTech’s EUA for administration of their COVID-19 mRNA vaccine to children 5 through 11 years of age. [emphasis mine]

Prior to this meeting the FDA has a public comment period, allowing anyone to comment on this agenda. That five day comment period began today. If you want to comment you can do so here.

This meeting is clearly linked closely to the Biden administration’s announcement today that it is preparing to roll out a campaign to get every child in the country vaccinated, once the FDA approves.

The Biden administration has secured enough vaccine supply to vaccinate the 28 million children ages 5 to 11 who would become eligible for vaccination if the vaccine is authorized for that age group and will help equip more than 25,000 pediatric and primary care offices, hundreds of community health centers and rural health clinics as well as tens of thousands of pharmacies to administer the shots, according to the White House.

“We know millions of parents have been waiting for Covid-19 vaccine for kids in this age group. And should the FDA and (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) authorize the vaccine, we will be ready to get shots in arms,” White House Covid-19 response director Jeff Zients told reporters at a White House Covid-19 briefing on Wednesday. Zients continued: “Kids have different needs than adults and our operational planning is geared to meet those specific needs, including by offering vaccinations in settings that parents and kids are familiar with and trust.”

The administration is also launching a partnership with the Children’s Hospital Association “to work with over 100 children’s hospital systems across the country to set up vaccination sites in November and through the end of the calendar year,” the White House announced.

The administration also plans to help make vaccination available at school and other “community-based sites” with help from Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. The Department of Health and Human Services will also carry out a national public education campaign “to reach parents and guardians with accurate and culturally responsive information about the vaccine and the risks that COVID-19 poses to children.”

Though they are of course not saying so, I guarantee that once vaccines are approved for children, the Biden administration’s next step will be to mandate them for any child who wants to attend public school or be treated any of these hospitals. Expect such mandates to also come down from the various states controlled by the Democratic Party. Your children will no longer be yours at that point.

As I said, you can comment here. I have already done so. A quick look though the 645 comments so far submitted shows them largely against any vaccines for children.

I urge everyone to add their own comments. Let them know what you think. Don’t stand idly by as they not only rob you of your freedom, but your children’s freedom as well.

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Biden administration to streamline regulations for commercial military satellites

10:09 am

Biden administration has decided to use capitalism in space in the building and launching of future military reconnaissance and surveillance satellites.

The Intelligence Community (IC) and key policy-makers within the Biden administration are intensifying efforts to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage more competition in the commercial remote sensing satellite marketplace, said Stacey Dixon, deputy director of national intelligence.

While she provided few specifics about plans in her address to the annual GEOINT conference today, she did say that in their deliberations on the way forward, government officials are looking to the model of streamlined space launch licensing practices. Regulatory reform has freed the launch industry in a way that has allowed prices to loft satellites to orbit to drop dramatically, she explained, and there is a thriving ecosystem of American companies competing for business. “It is important to realize and recognize that there’s a growing consensus, not only in the IC but also among policy-makers, that the kind of change that we’ve seen in launch services is the right way to go in other areas,” Dixon said at the conference hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF).

It appears that the success by SpaceX and others in the rocket industry has finally convinced the Washington swamp community, from both parties as well as within the bureaucracy, to embrace private enterprise and freedom, at least in their efforts to launch their space assets.

Don’t be fooled, however, into thinking the Washington bureaucracy and the Biden administration are now free market capitalists. Hardly, as illustrated by this further statement by Dixon:

“If we don’t adapt, others will set the rules and challenge our new leadership. We should set the rules. We should influence the standards, and do so in a way that is consistent with our democratic values,” Dixon said. [emphasis mine]

The swamp is embracing capitalism because they have realized that if they don’t, they will lose all control as private enterprise runs circles around them. By now supporting capitalism, they can create the illusion that they made things happen, when in truth they have simply hitched their mostly useless covered wagon to a very powerful sports car.

Regardless, this decision is good news, as it shows that the Biden administration will continue the free market policies in space that were established during the Trump administration.

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The Arizona election audit found significant issues that could easily have changed the final result

12:22 pm

Maricopa County election audit
Click for full graph.

Now that the election audit of the biggest county in Arizona is complete and released, it is necessary to look at what it found. This article does a nice job of summarizing the audit’s conclusions, which in total make it very clear that a lot of corruption and incompetence occurred in the 2020 election in Maricopa County, some of it possibly bordering on outright election fraud.

The graph to the right, from the audit, illustrates this. In twenty-two different categories the audit found votes that should not have been counted because they were illegal or invalid in some manner. Of those, seven categories described illegal or invalid votes totaling more than 53,000 votes, five times the 10,457 vote margin of Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Does this meant Trump won Arizona? Who knows? The audit did not determine the number of illegal or invalid votes that went to either candidate. What it did find, however, is that the entire voting system is corrupted and untrustworthy, and must be fixed.

The audit results have also revealed why the election officials in Maricopa County have been fighting this audit from day one. They clearly knew the election system was untrustworthy, and wanted to hide this fact, either to protect themselves from prosecution or to maintain their ability to defraud the voters.

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News flash! Union lobbyists wants to influence Biden against non-union SpaceX

9:41 am

In the past two days probably a dozen of my readers have sent me a link to this story at the Washington Examiner,
The Anti-SpaceX lobbying campaign casts new light on Elon Musk’s Biden beef.

The story reveals some private emails between a union lobbyist and a vice president at ULA, outlining their mutual effort to discredit Elon Musk and SpaceX because of its long term success in preventing its workforce from unionizing.

Everyone who has sent me this story somehow thinks it reveals a major breaking story.

I think this story is a tempest in a teapot. It reveals nothing newsworthy. All it shows is that a union lobbyist is trying to influence the Biden administration against SpaceX, a decidedly non-union company. Why should these actions surprise anyone? Unions always go after non-union companies, and they often do it by exerting their political clout.

Nor should be we surprised that one of SpaceX’s biggest competitors is partnering with the union in this effort. There is nothing newsworthy about this. Competitors compete, and that competition can sometimes be quite cut throat.

Furthermore, nothing in these emails appears illegal. The lobbyist’s claims against SpaceX are spurious and shallow, but so what? Unions have the right to lobby politicians, and they have the freedom to make whatever arguments they want, even if those arguments are silly or false.

Finally, to think it is a news story that Biden might be receptive to union lobbyists is kind of silly. Biden is a modern Democrat. In almost all matters he is going to genuflect to the unions. I don’t need to read the private emails of a union lobbyist to find this out.

However, the evidence in the past ten months shows that this lobbying effort has so far been incredibly ineffective. While I certainly do not trust the Democrats running the Biden administration, and fully expect them to take actions eventually to squelch private enterprise, this White House’s actions regarding space has so far generally continued the capitalist policies begun during the Trump administration. Note too that these are the same policies first begun at the end of the Bush Jr. administration, and encouraged strongly throughout the Obama administration. It certainly appears that — in space at least — the Democrats are as much for capitalism as the Republicans.

And these emails have apparently done nothing to change that. Thus, there is no news here.

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NASA reorganizes bureaucracy of manned programs

9:05 am

Moving those deck chairs! NASA yesterday announced that it is reorganizing the bureaucracy of its manned programs, splitting the Artemis program out from the commercial program.

The space agency announced today (Sept. 21) that it’s splitting the current Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) into two new entities: the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) and Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).

…ESDMD will be responsible for the development of systems and technology critical for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years and establish a sustainable human presence on and around Earth’s nearest neighbor by the end of the 2020s. ESDMD will also map out NASA’s broader “Moon to Mars” exploration strategy, of which Artemis is an integral part, agency officials said. (NASA aims to land humans on Mars in the 2030s, by leveraging the skills and techniques learned during the Artemis moon effort.)

SOMD, meanwhile, will be in charge of crewed launches and ongoing human spaceflight operations, including activities on the International Space Station and the commercialization of low Earth orbit, a NASA priority over the coming years. SOMD will also be responsible for crewed operations on and around the moon once they get up and running.

Kathy Lueders, who had been promoted from just running the commercial crew program to run all of manned space back in 2020, will once again run just the commercial side. The Artemis side will be run by another long time NASA administrator, Jim Free.

As I noted in 2020, these kinds of reorganizations at NASA happen periodically, and generally accomplish little except to allow NASA’s top managers to make believe they are doing something. In this case the split I think is intended to prevent Artemis from being completely taken over by commercial space, thus giving some bureaucratic clout to SLS and the factions at NASA that favor government control, with NASA designing and building everything rather than simply being a customer. If so, the decision is a bad one for Artemis. It means the Biden administration and those factions want to once again take over the design and construction of the entire Artemis program. Since NASA’s track record in this area has been abysmal for decades, it is unlikely this shift will change anything for the better.

This reorganization also suggests that the Biden administration has had second thoughts about the private and commercial approach as recommended in my policy paper, Capitalism in space and adopted by the Trump administration. If so, the consequences for the new emerging private space industry will not be good. They shall increasingly find the government more eager to micromanage their designs and concepts, rather than allowing the private sector the freedom to create things on its own.

The one silver lining to this change is that by creating these two divisions, NASA will be highlighting the competition between them. As commercial space increasingly succeeds, leaving the cumbersome Artemis program far behind, the split will illustrate clearly to the entire world that a government-built program is not the way to go.

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List of lawyers for fighting mask and vaccine mandates

9:31 pm

A new website has been established listing all the law firms available for fighting the Biden administration’s new Nazi vaccine mandates. As stated at the site:

[M]ost people (i.e. the people who just do what they are told by their employer, the government, or the narrative) do not know the law, so they believe that vaccine and mask mandates can be enforced. However, this is not true. This is when you will have to push back and contact an attorney to get advice.

I hope this helps you because now is the time to stand up to this kind of injustice and draconian medical tyranny. [emphasis mine]

The site not only lists a number of national legal organizations for filing lawsuits, it lists law firms, by state, that have said they will take these cases. It also adds this:

If you are Part of a Law Firm that would like to be added to The List, please email us at contact@fightthemandates.info.

As the website states, now is the time to stand up and fight. No more nice guy. Challenge these thugs, led by Democrat Joe Biden, in every way possible. Do not submit. Do not agree. Make them sweat.

I have never worn a mask, and continue to refuse to. Though this has denied me healthcare (no eye surgeon who does cataract surgeries nor will any lung doctor see me), I will not bow to this idiocy. I am now finding that some doctors will back down if I push hard enough.

Make them back down. Make them aware that their mask policies and new vaccine requirements are evil and you will not comply. You might not win, but if you do not fight you will have lost before the battle has even begun.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Mother of slain soldier censored by Instagram and Facebook

11:27 am

Screenshot of Instagram censoring

The new dark age of silencing: Apparently because her posts on Instagram and Facebook were highly critical of Democrat President Joe Biden, both social media companies immediately either shut down or restricted the accounts of Shana Chappell, the mother of one of the soldiers killed in the Kabul Airport suicide bombing.

The mother of a Marine killed in the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, last week had her account removed from Instagram and “incorrectly deleted” from Facebook following her fierce criticism of President Biden in the wake of her son’s death.

Shana Chappell, the mother of Kareem Nikoui, 20, took to Facebook on Monday to slam Instagram for removing her account after she started posting about what happened to her son and her belief that Biden is to blame. Chappell claimed the social media platform started to flag several of her “posts from months ago,” and began to send her warnings that she could have her account disabled.

“It seems Instagram took it upon themselves to delete my account because i am assuming it was because i gained so many followers over my sons death due to Biden’s negligence, ignorance and him being a traitor,” she wrote on Facebook. “I’m gonna assume that Facebook is gonna delete me next! Funny how these leftist one sided pieces of crap don’t want the truth to come out!

It appears both Instagram and Facebook have since restored her accounts and apologized, with both saying that her account was “accidentally deleted.” Hogwash. These actions are never an accident. They are almost always against people criticizing the left or the Democratic Party (I repeat myself), with many such bannings never explained or corrected.
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